Return to the old ways

It's been nearly five months since we could spend any time in North Norfolk. With spring in the air, it's good to be back. It's all reassuringly familiar from the slow road from Cambridgeshire tracking as it does, the route of the Peddars Way, to the village of East Runton, snoozing behind the Easter hustle and bustle of the coast.

Everything is subconsciously analysed and filed for reference. A new gate here. A new fence there. Rare breed sheep in the field with the donkeys (where you'd expect) but no sign of the commercial flock of sheep that normally would be coming into lamb. The first priority (apart from shopping for provisions) is to get out on the familiar network of paths. To touch each one with two human and four dog feet as if beating the bounds. To check-in with the landscape that drops down from the Cromer Holt ridge which forms the skyline to the south.

The signs of spring are just a little later here in the coastal micro-climate. The blackthorn is still in bloom, the first leaves just emerging on the hawthorn. Still too early for the ash and oaks to show. This does of course mean that the birds providing the soundtrack are just that bit easier to spot. Chiff chaffs lead the way with their famously onomatopoeic metallic song. One pops out of the hedgerow ahead of Boom and I. Surprisingly bold in the morning sun. I stand motionless and the terrier is behind me is otherwise occupied eating grass. I get the rare chance to dwell on the grey primaries and pale yellow chest without binoculars before it dives into cover and opens-up into song.

We make our way down the path eroded over time by running water and the passage of feet into the village. Boom likes to scale the head high bank intrigued at what might be in the fields to either side. But there are no Norfolk Red Poll cattle to see as yet. Still in their winter quarters I assume. But later in the evening, the rabbits will be out in the meadow from their warren on the hill, always with one eye out for the foxes that have a den nearby.

With concern over the climate becoming ever more pronounced, to return to the old ways and find them - superficially at least - as they should be, is something to be appreciated more than ever.